Campaign Postmortem: New voters elected Barack Obama

Steve Hildebrand, Obama deputy campaign manager, said he is firmly convinced that it was the campaign’s success in registering new voters that flipped the election. New voters determined the outcome in 8 to 9 states, he said.

“If we hadn’t had this very aggressive, very targeted voter registration effort, then Obama wouldn’t have been president,” Hildebrand said.

In one-on-one interviews between sessions of a Post-Election Conference in Lawrence, Kan., Hildebrand said new voter registrations were the margin of victory in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. New registrations may have also determined the outcome in Pennsylvania, he said.

The campaign’s overwhelming field operation facilitated the new voter registration and increased turnout. (How big was the field campaign? See below)

Comparing voter registration to the margin of victory provides the proof.

In Florida, for example, the Obama campaign registered 900,000 new voters. Before that registration drive, Democrats had a 650,000 registration advantage in the state.

“We won by 230,00,” Hildebrand said. “I think it’s pretty easy to see that if we hadn’t done that registration, we wouldn’t have won Florida.”

In Virginia, Obama lost the white vote by 23 percent, yet “Democrats in a Republican state turned out at an 8 percent higher rate than Republicans.”

The youth vote also helped cement the victory.

After the Obama voter registration drive in Colorado, voters under the age of 30 represented a larger portion of the electorate in that state than voters aged 60 and older.

“That’s unprecedented in American politics. If you look at virtually every battleground state in the country, voters 18 to 29 represented a higher portion of the vote than those 65 plus. Colorado was 60 plus. Other states were 65 plus. Those were new registrants.”

An aside: How overwhelming was Obama’s field campaign?

At the Post-Election conference, veteran GOP operative Ed Rollins of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush fame; and John McCain strategists Sarah Simmons and Christian Ferry said they were stunned when they heard at the Lawrence conference about the details of Obama’s operation.

I now return you to the non-political geeky part of your day.

Lieberman vs. Palin: The tale of two almost vice presidents

Here’s a tidbit for the political geeks among us: Barack Obama’s campaign feared that John McCain could win the election if McCain picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate. McCain’s campaign knew he couldn’t do that because of opposition from the GOP’s socially conservative base.

That word came today from Steve Hildebrand, deputy campaign manager for Obama, and Sarah Simmons, McCain director of strategy, and Christian Ferry, McCain deputy campaign manager. The three spoke at a Post-Election Conference at the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas.

Hildebrand said the Obama campaign worried that if McCain picked one-time Democrat Lieberman it would cement McCain’s credentials for reaching across the aisle. That would plump up McCain’s maverick image and make it harder for Obama to win the support of independent voters.

Simmons and Ferry said they knew going into September that they faced a difficult convention. Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s presence on their far right made the situation even tighter. That meant picking Lieberman was unthinkable.

Both Simmons and Ferry argued vigorously that Sarah Palin was a net plus for the McCain campaign. She energized volunteers and donors, they said. While acknowledging those arguments, most of the rest of the folks at the conference, including reporters and pollsters, scoffed at the idea that Palin ultimately did anything except hurt McCain.

If Palin really did cripple McCain’s presidential ship, then we now know: It was the GOP’s ultra-conservative, religious base that lead to her selection. I admit that this isn't new news, but it's nice to get official confirmation of what many have long suspected.

Dozens of call center workers refuse to read McCain script

Who says hope isn't part of politics? This is the most amazing and beautiful story I've read in weeks.

"Taxes are necessary for the common good."

Pop quiz: Which Republican told reporters today that "taxes are necessary for the common good?" The times really ARE changing. And then, of course, there is Colin Powell's withering critique of John McCain's campaign. See below.

The Silly Season

We've reached the Silly Season in politics. With weeks still left in the campaign, pundits have decided that they know exactly who will win. The candidate who is sinking in the polls, which may or may not be measuring reality, is throwing everything and the kitchen sink at his opponent. Bloggers are ramping up their rants, and the one thing that is absolutely indisputable is that it is now impossible to escape campaign ads. (Heck, you can't even get away from them in video games anymore.)

After we've all taken deep breaths and nice, long calming walks in the woods, we need to do whatever we can to ground ourselves in reality. Here are a few ideas on how to do that.

• Remember: No one has won the presidency yet. Days can equal years in politics. Withhold your celebrations or depressions until the night of Nov. 4.
• Ignore the polls. Unless you're a pollster or on Barack Obama or John McCain's campaign staff, they'll only drive you crazy and possibly mislead you. No one wins or loses until all the voters vote. If this election matters to you, it's still important to give money and time to your favorite candidate.
• Read every blogger, including me, with a healthy dose of skepticism. Bloggers tend to view the world through ideology-tinted glasses. That article they claim shows how everyone hates Sarah Palin, for example, may actually say nothing of the sort. Check out the article for yourself.
• And above all, fact check everyone, and that includes me.

It's time to turn our backs on McCain

I usually urge people to pay attention to political campaigns, but sometimes candidates sink so low that all you can do is turn away. Such is the fate of John McCain, a man I used to admire. McCain is now so desperate that he has sunk to using the Manchurian Candidate strategy against Barack Obama. Swampland provides an overview of the attack and Obama's response.

And just who was the Manchurian Candidate? Wikipedia tells all.

Why McCain & Palin's tactics matter

I dissect John McCain and Sarah Palin's tactics in my latest column. Can you say "lipstick on a pig?"

Today's Must Read: And the most presidential candidate is...

Joe Klein describes John McCain's anger management issues and quotes Karl Rove to make his point. The bottom line: "When was the last time Americans elected an angry President?"

And in case you missed it, Klein blogs about yet more evidence that McCain is unfit to lead.

Post Debate: The Mom-Meter

For what it's worth, my 81-year-old mother was not impressed with John McCain last night. She is a confirmed Democrat, so take this opinion with a grain of salt. However, I was curious about whether McCain's approach and age would comfort her.

I questioned her closely about how she felt about McCain's constant references to his experience, and her comment was that she had heard it all before. She said she has heard all of his ideas before, and is sick of the old way of doing things. Her bottom line? What we need is something new, and at least Barack Obama seemed to have new ideas.

The debate is back on

The New York Times and others are reporting the news. Shall we recap the events?

• John McCain "suspends" his campaign and declares that he won't debate until the financial crisis is solved.
• Republicans and Democrats in Congress announce that they have a deal to pass a modified bailout plan.
• "Suspended" McCain campaign continues running ads and attacking Barack Obama via surrogates, while the news media report that McCain is putting "country first."
  
• McCain flies to Washington, DC, and arrives with much fanfare.
• Announced bailout plan crashes and burns.
  
• McCain declares victory and announces that he will (tah dah!) debate Obama as planned.
• Congressional leaders and Bush Administration go back to what they were doing before McCain intervened. A grateful nation holds its breath and prays for a real solution.
  

What was accomplished? McCain got a ton of news coverage.

A passing acquaintance with the truth

The McCain campaign vs. the Truth.

John McCain meet Herbert Hoover

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm a confirmed Paul Krugman fan. I value his knowledge, his political perspective and, most of all, his ability to explain the economy in terms that make sense. Today Krugman brings a couple of interesting facts to our attention in his blog. He reminds us of how John McCain is sounding eerily like Herbert Hoover on the eve of the Great Depression, and then points us toward the "postmodern bank run(s)" happening now.

Update
Updated with image of Hoover.

Another reason to vote for Sen. Obama

By Nancy Jane Moore

I'm traveling, so I get my news in lumps. This morning I read about the Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers collapses; now I see that the Dow dropped over 500 points.

The NY Times reported the reactions of the two presidential contenders to the financial news.

Barack Obama said the current situation was "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression" and added, "This country can’t afford another four years of this failed philosophy."

John McCain said that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

I can't respond better than Sen. Obama did: "Senator McCain, what economy are you talking about?"

Tom Toles: A picture is worth a thousand words

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. Tom Toles sets the record straight. The entire cartoon is available here.

This election isn't about lipstick on a pig

This morning it's worth noting the conjunction of the crisis on Wall Street with the McCain-Palin outrage over Barack Obama's use of a common saying about pigs and lipstick. Our financial system is teetering, and the Republicans are furious over a manufactured, non-existent slight. The issues we confront are too serious for that kind of stupidity.

Here is today's most chilling sentence. From Princeton Economist Paul Krugman:

Will the U.S. financial system collapse today, or maybe over the next few days? I don’t think so — but I’m nowhere near certain

Joan Garry vents her fury over the Log Cabin endorsement of McCain

Joan Garry writes that the Log Cabin Republican's endorsement of John McCain is like chickens voting for Col. Sanders. I concur.

Open Letter to Progressives: Let's not let ourselves get "Braziled"

As the Obama-Biden ticket tumbles in the post-convention polls, there is more than a whiff of panic in the air of ProgressiveLand. You can smell it in the blogosphere and in the e-mails, Twitterings and Facebook messages flying around the Internet.

Joan Walsh summed the facts and the feelings up nicely on Salon.com today.

Democrats traumatized by the surreal losses in 2000 and 2004 feel like it's déjà vu all over again, with the sudden surge of John McCain and Sarah Palin in the polls. It's like a bad dream: Even the Obama fundraising juggernaut is stumbling, according to the New York Times, missing its internal targets and having to push harder for cash. Meanwhile, white women have flocked to the ticket with the white female vice president; according to the most recent ABC News poll, Barack Obama had an 8-point lead among white women voters last week; now he's trailing McCain by 12, a 20-point swing in one week.

I'm not writing to say that everything is going to be OK. To do so would be a lie because no one, absolutely no one, knows who is going to win on Nov. 4. Any pollster, any pundit, any beer-drinking buddy from down the street who says that this election is already locked up for John McCain or for Obama is simply a fool.

But I would like to offer some perspective on the psychology of this moment. To understand what may be happening, we have to understand the psychology of competition. Any individual competitor -- or a campaign or political movement -- can defeat itself. Right now, that's what I see as the biggest danger for Obama fans.

To fully explore this idea (and explain my headline), I need to detour into women's soccer. I suspect that Brazil's 1-0 defeat in the gold medal game had more to do with what was going on between the ears of Brazil's players than with what happened on the field.

If you follow the women's game at all, you know that the U.S. once dominated the world (and Brazil), but recently our team has been, at best, a fading power, while the immensely talented Brazil has been ascendant. To make matters worse, our star player, Abby Wambaugh, suffered a broken leg just before the Olympics. Few expected the U.S. to win gold, but we triumphed despite the fact that Brazil played brilliantly for most of the game.

While providing color commentary on the Olympic telecast, former national team star Brandi Chastain offered the best explanation I heard for Brazil's defeat. The U.S. has beaten Brazil so many times in the past that the Brazilians simply couldn't believe that they would win, Chastain said.

Action followed belief.

Reality blossomed out of prophecy.

Today progressives find themselves in the same position as Brazil, except that the stakes are far higher than an Olympic medal.

No one knows what will happen on Nov. 4, but there is one way for progressives to guarantee failure, and that's to remain convinced that we can't win.

For more perspective -- some cheerful and some not -- see these links.

A Democratic pollster puts the latest polls in perspective.

Jonathon Capehart from The Washington Post considers the situation.

CNN does a poll of polls and considers the electoral map.

Tied

The newest poll shows that the Republican National Convention gave John McCain the momentum, but it also shows that the race is now tied. Other polls gave McCain the lead.

All together now: Who decides a tie in a presidential race? Voters do. That's you and me, folks.

Post-convention bounce puts McCain ahead of Obama

[updated]

Now Obama is running to catch up, according to post-convention polls by USA Today/Gallop and three other pollsters. Nate Silver (no relation) tries to make statistical sense of it.

[update 10:58 am Central]

Ana Marie Cox adds more perspective and provides reasons for everyone, both Ds and Rs, to take a deep breath.

John McCain & THE Speech: Seemed flat to me

I'm not the primary audience for this speech, so take my impressions with a grain of salt, or the entire salt shaker, but John McCain did not move me tonight. This seemed like a retread of every other Republican laundry list of old ideas. (Can anyone say "cut taxes?") McCain himself just looked tired.

There were two highlights for me. One was when McCain seemed to apologize for the last eight years. The second was when he admitted that his captors had broken him and how he had grown from the experience. I was sincerely moved and felt I could finally glimpse a tiny bit of the real man behind the politician.

But the retelling of McCain's POW story has begun to sadden me. I have always respected McCain for his service and for what he suffered, but this constant repetition of his suffering feels like it cheapens a truly horrific experience. It's as if Republicans have turned McCain's suffering into nothing more than a political talking point.

All the talking heads on PBS except for one, gave the speech a resounding A. They talked about the enthusiasm of the audience and McCain's effectiveness. Perhaps he looked and sounded better in person, but on TV the speech, speaker and the audience all seemed flat.

And someone please... fire whoever set up that screen behind the speakers. Don't let them ever put the color green behind McCain again!